Kaitlin’s Birth
Kaitlin birth story-written by her!
The morning of March 28th I woke up at 6 am to a bit of bloody mucus plug. I knew it would be soon as this is how it started with my first. I had inconsistent contractions all day ranging from 10-30 minutes apart. They did get stronger and longer, but not really closer together, then began to stall out. I became so incredibly frustrated because I wasn’t confident that I was in labor and had only ever been induced before so I had no idea what spontaneous labor was like.
My husband got home and we ate dinner. I was scatterbrained all day and couldn’t accomplish much. Took a very short nap between contractions. After my other three children went to bed, my contractions became nearly unbearable while lying down, but still 10, 15 and 30 minutes apart. ETA: it’s such a misnomer that you have to have contractions that grow closer together to be in true labor. Mine didn’t until transition hit. Any time I stood up, I lost more bloody show (this was around 11pm). My contractions grew to about 5-7 minutes apart and were incredibly painful, but still very inconsistent. They would go from 5 minutes, to 3 minutes, back to 7.
I called my midwife and doula around 2 am to see what they thought, because I was still in denial as they never really got too consistent, so I gave up on timing them and let my body do it’s thing. They agreed to come over (I kept telling them I don’t want to waste anyone’s time or have them come too soon, apparently in denial).
My doula arrived at around 4:00 am (I think) and my midwives showed up at about 4:45. I should add that the main midwife I had been seeing throughout my pregnancy did not tell me she was going out of the country when I saw her the week before. So I had never met these midwives before. I was stressed about it. Anyways, They got me on my hands and knees and shook my hips for me through contractions (which I Highly HIGHLY recommend. Nothing else at all worked for me. I wanted to crawl out of my skin at this point). She said she could tell without checking I was at about an 8. I didn’t think so because I checked myself an hour earlier and my cervix was SO high. Note to self: cervix is NOT a good indication of progress. DUH. She wiggled my hips through maybe five more contractions and said that if I wanted a water birth I needed to get in NOW or I’d miss it. I still thought she was crazy.
I got into the tub at 5 am and immediately felt my daughters head descend. The pushing was incredibly intense. There was NO breathing her down as she was already right there. I never even felt her coming down. With three more surges her head was out EN CAUL! It felt so interesting! With the very last surge the bag tore open. I wanted that moment of clarity between worlds before she came earth side but my body was NOT waiting on me. I just needed the pressure to go away. I swore I felt like I was going to tear. I was in shock and had never had the chance to feel my baby being born myself. It was very surreal to have my own hand be the one to guide her out. Part of my mucus plug was STILL ATTACHED TO THE BAG! The next bit of pressure and the rest of her body delivered itself. Also: I will never forget my husband leisurely standing at the end of the pool with a damn flashlight He called it “spelunking”.
All I could say was “What just happened?” I didn’t even have time to “get in the zone”, pray, nothing. It happened so incredibly fast. I was sure I was only at a 5 when they arrived. Little miss Parker Eloise came to be at 5:09 am. She took a few minutes, but latched seamlessly. After about 15 minutes of breastfeeding, they wanted to placenta out before my cervix started to shrink back down, so I stood up and out it came. We got into the bed to check for tears and massage my tummy. I had ONE skidmark and lost about 500ccs.
My other three babes woke up around 6 am and were in complete shock and awe.
One piece of advice I would give is to throw EVERYTHING you think you know about birth out the window. Google knows nothing about YOUR body. You can be in active labor with contractions 10 minutes apart. Also- mentally prepare yourself. I thought that because I’d gone without an epidural before that I had this. If I would have known it was transition I was struggling with, it would have been arguably much easier to manage.